The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

formed to draw in ‘workers and peasants’. These organisational forms emerged under
Tabata’s influence, and it was Tabata who was projected as the leading thinker and
orator of the movement, a leader forced into exile under threat of repression, after
having survived a five‐year ban. He was a “brilliant political analyst”, as shown by his
writings and speeches, and he was also an “outstanding organiser and orator”, who
was able “to convey to all sections of the population, workers and peasants”, the
“complex nature” of the struggle in South Africa and “the solution to the political
problems facing the people in clear, unambiguous terms”. 35
A key moment in this fairly settled narrative was Tabata’s arrest at Mount Ayliff in
1948. His acquittal “galvanised the spirit of resistance among the peasantry”, and this
“spread throughout the rural areas and continued into the 1960s”. It was because of
their “revolutionary” politics that Tabata and his comrades were “thwarted” in their
efforts to secure recognition and support from the OAU. Nevertheless, in this
narrative, Tabata’s life did not culminate in failure. Mindful of the “continuity of the
struggle”, and concerned about “leaving behind a worthy heritage for the young”,
Tabata was “very interested in the youth and devoted a great deal of energy and to
training them”. 36 The culmination of this biographic narrative of political consistency
was Tabata’s life and work turned into a realm of memory, through the continuing
sale of his writings, and in the creation of the Tabata archival collection. This was the
final stage of biographic work in the ongoing moulding and reproduction of Tabata’s
life history.
But Tabata did not always have a biography. His refusal to narrate his life and
distribute his own image reared its head at an early stage in the history of the Unity
Movement. This biographic disavowal was expressed in 1946 in a remarkable set of
epistolary exchanges. These communications raised a number of issues that are
35 Norman Traub, ‘I.B. Tabata’ (Obituary), The Independent, 3 November 1990. See also Unity Movement
of South Africa (UMSA), ‘I.B. Tabata’, Memorial Pamphlet, Issued by the Unity Movement of South
Africa, Eikefontein, October 1990.
36 Norman Traub, ‘I.B. Tabata’ (Obituary), The Independent, 3 November 1990.
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